Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize: The Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize in the amount of $50,000 is awarded biannually to an individual or organization chosen by a distinguished panel of judges.

The goal of this award is to enhance awareness of the critical role of religious dialogue in the pursuit of peace as well as to provide direct support for the furtherance of such activities.

Prize Award Criteria:

A panel of judges composed of religious leaders, academics and individuals known for their commitment to interfaith dialogue will consider the recent and career accomplishments of nominees.

Award recipients will have demonstrated extraordinary leadership, courage and a capacity for inspiring in others a willingness to embrace the vulnerability that is the key to true religious dialogue.

Prize Eligibility:

Any living individual or organization that the nominator believes has contributed to the promotion of constructive dialogue and/or relations between faith communities.

Prize Criteria:

The committee invites nominators to consider a wide-range of activities.

A nominee may, for example, have organized members of different faith communities to work toward a common goal; produced a work of art or literature that contributes to or publicizes the importance of interfaith dialogue; or uses a position of authority or power to bring faith communities together.

Nominees may be designated on the basis of a single contribution or a lifetime of contributions.

Prize Nomination Procedures:

Nominators should provide a brief description of themselves (no more than 100 words) and a two page letter describing the individual or organization being nominated and the activities the nominator believes qualify the nominee for consideration.

Nominators should explain why the nominee’s activities are of an exceptional nature.

For more information and scholarship applications, see: Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize

Apply for Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize

Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize: The Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize in the amount of $50,000 is awarded biannually to an individual or organization chosen by a distinguished panel of judges.

The goal of this award is to enhance awareness of the critical role of religious dialogue in the pursuit of peace as well as to provide direct support for the furtherance of such activities.

Prize Award Criteria:

A panel of judges composed of religious leaders, academics and individuals known for their commitment to interfaith dialogue will consider the recent and career accomplishments of nominees.

Award recipients will have demonstrated extraordinary leadership, courage and a capacity for inspiring in others a willingness to embrace the vulnerability that is the key to true religious dialogue.

Prize Eligibility:

Any living individual or organization that the nominator believes has contributed to the promotion of constructive dialogue and/or relations between faith communities.

Prize Criteria:

The committee invites nominators to consider a wide-range of activities.

A nominee may, for example, have organized members of different faith communities to work toward a common goal; produced a work of art or literature that contributes to or publicizes the importance of interfaith dialogue; or uses a position of authority or power to bring faith communities together.

Nominees may be designated on the basis of a single contribution or a lifetime of contributions.

Prize Nomination Procedures:

Nominators should provide a brief description of themselves (no more than 100 words) and a two page letter describing the individual or organization being nominated and the activities the nominator believes qualify the nominee for consideration.

Nominators should explain why the nominee’s activities are of an exceptional nature.

For more information and scholarship applications, see: Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize

The post Apply for Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

UK parliamentarians and civil servants will this week join African farmers, international donors and scientists in a policy dialogue that aims to reshape agricultural research to serve development goals and the public good.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, and the executive director of Oxfam-Novib, Farah Karimi, will chair the event, which the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has organised on 1-3 February in Ghana.

UK-based parliamentarians, the media, and members of the international development community will participate through a live video link hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group of Agroecology in Westminster.

Baroness Miller, the Group’s co-chair says: “This is a unique event in that it will allow farmers from across West Africa direct access to the organisations which directs and funds research into the development of agriculture. We very much hope it will be productive and change the way in which research priorities are decided and implemented so that farmers become directly involved in the governance of agricultural research and development which affects them”.

Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director of IIED says: “This is a valuable platform for smallholder farmers to get their voices heard. We’d like to see this constructive dialogue setting an agenda for future research priorities across the region.”

The meeting will bring staff from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) together with small-scale farmers and food processors from Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal, as well as from East Africa, Asia and Latin America.

With a total budget of nearly US$400 million, AGRA is a major funder of agricultural research in Africa. The meeting will allow senior staff from the alliance to hear what small-scale farmers and food producers from a number of West African countries think agricultural research should focus on.

“Publically funded research can make a huge contribution to eradicating hunger and poverty.  But the way it is designed, managed and implemented rarely involves the people who produce, process and consume agricultural produce,” says Dr Michel Pimbert of IIED. “The lack of democracy in setting strategic priorities for research is not only unjust. It stifles the collective intelligence and abilities of farmers and scientists to solve the social and environmental crisis that undermines the right to food and human well-being”.

In a briefing paper published for the meeting [attached here], Pimbert describes a series of “citizens’ juries” at which farmers in West Africa have called for changes to agricultural research in recent years. The meeting in Ghana will enable such farmers, donors and senior scientists to identify areas of agreement and difference on what is needed in Africa to alleviate poverty and eradicate hunger.

Specific issues on the agenda include:

• priorities for plant breeding and seed selection;
• options for managing soil fertility;
• options for developing accessible markets;
• ways of governing, organising, funding and practising research; and
• the types of policies needed to transform Africa’s agriculture, including changes to tenure, subsidies and investment.

“Mainstream agricultural research informs and influences food and agricultural policies, funding allocations and food security interventions of governments and donors,” says Farah Karimi, executive director of Oxfam-Novib.

“As a rights-based organisation working against poverty, Oxfam Novib supports the move to democratise agricultural research and let the voices of farmers be heard.  With the food crisis, now more than ever, we need to recognize and act with small-holder farming communities, as they are decisive actors in the local to global responses to the food and climate crisis. Agricultural research must respond to the needs and build on the knowledge and resilience of men and women farmers. Their right to food and land must steer the agenda of agricultural research.”

Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director of IIED says: “The challenges ahead are huge, if food security is to be achieved in a context of growing climate impacts, scarce water and increasing competition for land. Africa’s farmers bring much knowledge and many insights of great value to finding effective answers to these problems. Let’s find a better way of hearing from them in helping craft practical solutions.”

The meeting in Ghana will take place at Erata Hotel. It has been funded by Oxfam-Novib, The Christensen Fund, New Field Foundation, Biovision Foundation, and by IIED’s Joint Framework donors — DFID, DGIS, Danida, SIDA, NORAD and Irish Aid.

A copy of Dr Michel Pimbert’s briefing paper is attached as a PDF file.

The live video link will take place on Thursday 2nd & Friday 3rd February, 2012 in The Attlee Suite, Portcullis House from 12pm – 2pm both days. Details of directions can be found here and the entrance to Portcullis House is number 3 on the map, The Attlee Suite is on the first floor.  Please note queuing times can be in excess of 20 minutes during busy parts of the day, so please arrive in plenty of time to go through security.  RSVP to Sophie Elwes, APPG Agroecology Coordinator elwess@parliament.uk

Mike Shanahan

Press officer

International Institute for Environment and Development

80-86 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8NH, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 3463 7399; Fax: +44 (0)20 3514 9055

www.iied.org

Twitter http://twitter.com/IIED

Biodiversity Media Alliance http://biodiversitymedia.ning.com

Climate Change Media Partnership roster http://climatechangemedia.ning.com

The post Putting farmers first: Democratising and reshaping agricultural research in West Africa first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.